Thursday, April 01, 2010

After the silence

I never got to put together my year end meme at the end of last year, and I sort of regret abandoning this place and not doing that. Occasionally I like going back and reading those things just to see what kind of a state I have been in over the course of the past couple of years. I just did that now, re-read some old stuff that I've written, and wow. I am one sad-sack. It looks like most of what I have written here is just sad, depressing crap about how everything is sucking.

Well, I think I ought to lighten it up a little bit and say SOMETHING just so no one out there thinks I've off-ed myself, because if i didn't know me, I would certainly think that.

Some updates:

I am still engaged. I had planned to get married this coming October, but at this point, I'm not sure if that's really going to be good timing. While I've been window-shopping catering halls and party favors and other assorted wedding crap, I have not actually booked or bought anything. The Boy was laid off in October of 2008. He just started a job 2 weeks ago. He had been home for over a year collecting unemployment and there was just no way that I could afford to book anything without knowing what the future was going to hold. I've been waiting a year to start planning or booking anything and it's been, well, it's been a real drag if you want it plainly.

The Boy has a job. This is great news. The money is not great, but just having him leave the house and go to work has made a vast improvement on his sense of purpose, as I'm sure you could imagine. Also, he really likes it, which is a bonus.

In turn, I got laid off.

My company, which I would have been with for 10 years this past February, cut an entire department, and subsequently downsized all of the supporting departments. In my last incarnation at the place, I reported to a woman in Cincinnati, which I'm pretty sure I never talked about here. That was intentional, and you know, maybe I stopped writing here all together because all I would want to talk about is how much I hated this woman. But I'm a professional. So I'll bash her after I've left.

I reported to a woman in Cincinnati after my (wonderful, supportive, smart and lovely) department got reorganized. The VP decided that since he had such a magnificent hard-on for this woman, that he would make her a manager of a brand new "global" department in which she has direct reports in both NY and the mid-west. This was maybe not such a good idea. But my opinion didn't really matter. She was not a fan of mine. In turn, I had the good sense to hate her. The truth is, I don't actually know why she didn't like me, but I sensed it when I literally wouldn't hear from her for 4-6 months at a time. No really. No phone calls, no e-mails, nothing. That's not the best way to run a department, I'm sure you could imagine.

Bitch laid me off. I knew she would, I knew it was coming (not that she warned me), and I really wanted to get out of there anyway. What I'm not going to detail is how she tried to screw me each and every way possible after my pink slip notification, in the last month that I was there. Cause that would be petty. What really kills me is that I used to work for a real company and I didn't know it.

I was extremely fortunate to land a new job within 2 weeks of my last day at the old place. Extremely fortunate, I know that, and it was such a load off my mind, I may have been a little cavalier in accepting the job offer. Like, maybe I should have looked a little longer before taking the first offer that hit me in the head.

I've been at the new place for close to two months now, and I can honestly say that I had no idea that a place could be so adverse to following federal regulations. It's almost like they WANT to be shutdown! Amazing. And I keep thinking, "holy crap, I used to work for a real company. I had no idea! They actually knew what they were doing. How is that possible?" I DON'T KNOW.

So, I think I might throw my name back into the hat of job searching again, because this place kind of scares the crap out of me. In the meantime, I'm really excited about getting paid, and the idea that I can start planning a wedding. Though probably not until next year since neither of us will have any vacation time until then.

This has turned out to be kind of a downer of a post, too, so I'm not sure if I really accomplished anything here today.

Glad to hear from you, Claire! I just wish things were going stellar for you. I know they will be soon, though. Weddings have a way of making you forget how crappy everything else in your life is at any given time. I know from experience.

Oh dude, does that SUCK about both you and the boy. I'm keeping my fingers crossed over here for you too.

And if you want my sister to marry you for free, she's all yours. She has married me (legally, we had a judge for the actual party part of the wedding) and her friend. I think she should take it up as a side business since her husband hasn't been working for a year and a half. Crazy!

I know I should be saying something supportive, but what I'm thinking is, "when this post popped up on my reader, I left it there to read later. I thought that was a week ago, but it was April 1??? Man, I am so behind." I am nothing if not self-centered.

I once worked for a university department that was breaking a variety of laws and I made the mistake of letting on that I knew that was happening, which resulted in a fairly unpleasant work experience for the rest of the time that I was there. Less than a year after I left, a lot of it came to light and a number of people were fired, including my chief tormenter, which to this day many years later still delights me. I'm not sure why I'm telling you this story, except to illustrate that sometimes good things can happen to you in the form of bad things happening to people you don't like. Oh, and I guess that you should pretend you don't notice what's going on around you until you have something better lined up.

About Me

In truth, i'm totally self-conscious about sharing my thoughts with complete strangers, possibly the criminally insane and/or people I went to high school with (whom i hate, by the way... really, Hate you.)